Countless nutritionists require a daily food log as foundational for their clients’ success. Specifically not counting calories, food logs simply have you list out what you consumed in a day or week, so that you become aware of the food you put in your body. Awareness then allows you to adjust your consumption in whatever way you want: Dieting, bulking up, adding or subtracting protein or carbs, etc.
I started the “My Media Diet” personal experiment with that food log concept in mind: If I knew more about what news sources I was taking in, maybe I could better control how to manage and change my consumption in ways I wanted instead of letting news wash over me.
Of course, I’m not your average news consumer and never have been. My career in news, from over a decade at The Washington Post to years building Axios.com and Axios Local, has largely been about production.
News producers like me try to put ourselves in the shoes of our audience to come up with new and better ways to catch attention for our news brand, integrate it into their daily habits, and get them to pay eventually. In short, I have always been concerned about the supply of news, not the demand.
So it’s only recently that I’ve turned my attention inward to my own consumption.
My initial experiment:
- I set a budget of $150/month for independent media subscriptions above and beyond mainstream media subscriptions. I get the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post via my Harvard affiliation – check your workplace, local library or the like to see if they have free or discounted access.
- I solicited nominations for what I should subscribe to from my personal social media network of colleagues in the field, largely on LinkedIn and also my very smart colleagues at Havard via internal email lists. For those that didn’t know me, I tried to give some idea of my interests (TV), geography (DC and Boston) and family (I am a parent) so that those who didn’t know me might tailor their picks. Some of those suggestions were independent media like Defector, individual creators like Lyz Lenz’ “Men Yell At Me” newsletter, and a podcast about curiosities in Vermont.
- Each month, I’d build out what I’d pay for and post it publicly on my LinkedIn. I chose to measure this in dollars even though there is free media out there, counting payment as a donation, if applicable.
- At the end of each month, I solicit tweaks to my media diet and then post what my new lineup was at the beginning of each month.
Some of those included Internet Shaquille’s Patreon, “The Food Section” newsletter, The “Never Post” podcast and the “Everyday Drinking” newsletter.
I started in May 2025. Here’s some conclusions I’ve come to in the five months since:
- Not nearly enough people share what they consume with their friends, colleagues and family. Most people stick with what they know, and discovery on social media platforms is so broken that algorithms are largely responsible for what ends up in front of you.
- Most people don’t know the totality of what they consume, certainly not on scroll-y social media but even sometimes what they pay for. It sounds ludicrous but I learned when I worked at The Washington Post that a surprisingly high percentage of subscribers there paid and never once used their digital subscriptions after paying.
- I suspect there’s also some shame, imposter syndrome, and more at work here. Do you really want to be embarrassed by sharing that you pay for a reality TV Substack? Just like the Facebook of yore, people want to project that they read a certain publication that reflects who they want to be, even if they actually read it or not.
- Sharing your media diet is in itself a form of media literacy.
- You have to support what you love, even if it’s free. If you don’t, it will go away.
- $150 is probably too much to spend on independent media. Some months I was paying for 18 different publications and not even coming close to reading/watching/listening to that much media.
- Independent media is in itself narrow right now. I’m planning to add my wider diet of mainstream publications, one off social media finds, and even entertainment (see: streaming services) at some point, to get a better picture of how I spend my attention.
Discovery of new voices is broken on nearly every social media platform, including the “good” ones like TikTok. Ultimately, how did I find the independent publications that interested me?
I had to ask for recommendations from people I trusted, online and in-person.
I like my media diet more now that I’ve made some changes. I feel good supporting individuals over faceless brands. I feel more connected to others who recommended to me their favorite creators. I feel like there are good alternatives to spend my time outside of clicking into the national news (often political) conversation. And I feel more agency to change my media diet again, if I want or need to. I’ll be continuing to tweak and update publicly on LinkedIn, if you want to join me in the journey.